An essential part of surgery is the ability to make precision incisions. With the incisions, there is the production of blood from cut blood vessels. Procedures for stemming the flow of blood generally involve procedures for cauterizing the bleeding vessels. Among available procedures include the use of lasers, ligation and radio frequency cauterization. Intense heat can also be used for surgical procedures other than cauterization of blood vessels. Localized heat release, or generation, has been achieved by several means. Current approaches for heating tissue include: gamma radiation, lasers, ultrasound, microwave, radio frequency waves, electrical resistance heating, and hot water heating.
A significant drawback to each of these methods is subjecting the body to strong electromagnetic fields and often the surrounding tissue is subjected to the radiation, but in lower doses, or the requirement of a substantial access for inserting the instruments.
Micro-combustion can be used to provide direct heat transfer for local hyperthermia. The use of direct heat transfer overcomes limitations of other methods of hyperthermic treatments by providing a higher heat flux, enhanced localized heat release by fluid exchange, and reduced thermal damage to tissue surrounding a target region. In addition, using micro-combustion requires only a minute opening through which to feed a needle.